Education

International workers in digital tech industries are more likely to have advanced higher educational qualifications

Analysis shows that non-UK nationals have a high share of Master’s and PhD qualifications (Master’s degrees being much more common than PhDs). For non-EU workers 17.6 per cent have a Master’s degree or PhD, while for EU workers, 12.5 per cent have a Master’s degree of PhD.

Average share of digital-tech industry workforce by nationality (2011 – 2015) with Master’s degree or PhD.

Nationality

Proportion of workforce with Master’s degree or PhD

Rest of EU

12.5%

Non-EU

17.6%

UK

10.5%

For non-EU workers 17.6 per cent have a Master’s or PhD qualification – this is consistent with the requirements of the UK migration policy system – under the Tier 2 skilled worker route, many non-EU workers in skilled jobs will be required to hold higher educational qualifications 1.

Notes:

The qualifications of workers are available in the APS, containing information on both the level of qualifications (by National Qualification Framework level) and type of qualification. ↩

LinkedIn data

There is also evidence from analysis by LinkedIn of its platform data that migrants have higher levels of qualifications than domestic workers.

This work has found that 40% of professional migrants 1 into the UK in the past three years are from EU with 60% having a Masters or Doctoral degree in comparison to 34% of UK LinkedIn members.

It was also found that highly qualified professional migrants are 1.3 times more likely to work in the tech sector 2

Notes:

Professional migrants are defined in the article as people who have moved to the UK in the last 3 years. The analysis offers a snapshot of labour migrants though those that use LinkedIn, and LinkedIn does not verify qualifications, or employment history ↩